By  E. W. Lang

The United States Department of Agriculture came out with a crop report this week estimating that the 2022 corn crop will be less than either of the last two years.  It's a long way to harvest, and a host of things can and may not happen, but the December 2022 corn futures hit a record high price in response to the report. 

For milk producers producing all of their own silage and corn grain on owned land or land rented with contracts signed two years ago, this kind of corn value makes for a good bottom line, even with input costs that are high by any measure. 

Class III Milk-Feed indices for the next four months lost 50 cents this week in response to higher corn prices and lower Class III futures.  May and June Class III futures average $24.40 per cwt., a loss of 35 cents for the week.  Class IV averages $24.44 for May and June.  Thats up 29 cents, however.

Butter was up six cents per lb. this week at $2.70.  Block cheese lost four cents at $2.31 per lb.  Barrel cheese lost one at $2.39 per lb.

Shipping congestion at U. S. ports has become less in recent weeks, fortunate in that cheese exports have been at or near record high levels.   Also, overseas milk production continues to decrease in the major production countries of the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

India has stopped exporting wheat.  They are the world's no. 2 producer, which I wouldn't have guessed, and their hot March weather reduced their expected yields by 5.7%.  This is in addition to the Ukraine/Russia war that has limited wheat production for that region, as well.  Note here that wheat is both an animal and human food stuff, unlike corn which only farm stock eats.  So that wheat price dynamic affects human food costs from two directions, in a sense. 

While I suspect that corn will again visit the $3.50 per bushel level at some point in the future, high priced feed stuffs will likely be with us for a couple years, anyway.  In that time there will be some realization in the marketplace that industrial production of corn, wheat, beans, beef, pork, eggs and milk is the truly sustainable way to feed a hungry and mostly poor world.  This includes the chemicals, fertilizers, genetic wizardry and large scale practices that have been increasingly common to our meals ever since native Iowan, fellow ISU alumnus and somewhat communist U.S. Vice-President Henry A. Wallace first exploited hybrid seed corn for profit in 1926, 

Yes, there will always be barnyard and hometown food production and marketing, but that is a difficult row to hoe when land is $20,000 per acre, hips will no longer stay in and the next generation doesn't want to operate 14 hours, seven days, and always be late for church on Sunday.